Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I don't think widespread buffs would or should ever be a thing, but it does really frustrate me the huge boatload (and yes when you add them all up through all the sets, there are absolutely tons) of cards that are just so laughably,unplayably bad, I'm talking Millhouse, Nat pagle, tinkmaster, cho, duskfallen Avinna, Hemet nesingwary to name but a few. How does having these cards exist as they are benefit anybody, apart from giving rage to a. people who get them in packs or b. people who get them from some kind of random generation effect.
I'm not even suggesting huge overhauls or changes, often just some small stat buffs or make their often gamebreaking side effects not quite as ridiculous so they can at least have *some* level of playablity and niche, even if it is an obscure one.
Just too throw in some random suggestions off the top of my head, what if Hemet actually had playable stats so it didnt die to almost every 2 drop? You could have an tech option if beast heavy decks ever start dominating the meta, and before you laugh, remember there was a point in time in hearthstone where pirate warrior and other weapon decks were so good, bloodsail corsair was seeing play. What if you could choose the target for tinkmasters transform effect? All of a sudden players would have a tech option against the big pirests rampaging in wild right now. The possibilities goes on and on
Instead they are just left too rot and be forgotten about forever apart from a trolden video every few months when someone makes the mistake of playing one, such a waste.
Many of the other digital card games use buffs quite regularly, and the results are usually positive. Hearthstone is the only game I play that pushes the nerf panic button waaay too much, and as OP said, it's a temp fix until the next most broken deck takes over. Hearthstone nerfs are like a broken record, it's always the same result afterwards, the game never gets healthier for the long term.
This is news to me. What card games have buffed their cards with positive results?
Cards are regularly buffed in Faeria, though this is usually done to nudge unpopular archetypes closer to playability, and not an attempt to balance the meta.
Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I don't think widespread buffs would or should ever be a thing, but it does really frustrate me the huge boatload (and yes when you add them all up through all the sets, there are absolutely tons) of cards that are just so laughably,unplayably bad, I'm talking Millhouse, Nat pagle, tinkmaster, cho, duskfallen Avinna, Hemet nesingwary to name but a few. How does having these cards exist as they are benefit anybody, apart from giving rage to a. people who get them in packs or b. people who get them from some kind of random generation effect.
I'm not even suggesting huge overhauls or changes, often just some small stat buffs or make their often gamebreaking side effects not quite as ridiculous so they can at least have *some* level of playablity and niche, even if it is an obscure one.
Just too throw in some random suggestions off the top of my head, what if Hemet actually had playable stats so it didnt die to almost every 2 drop? You could have an tech option if beast heavy decks ever start dominating the meta, and before you laugh, remember there was a point in time in hearthstone where pirate warrior and other weapon decks were so good, bloodsail corsair was seeing play. What if you could choose the target for tinkmasters transform effect? All of a sudden players would have a tech option against the big pirests rampaging in wild right now. The possibilities goes on and on
Instead they are just left too rot and be forgotten about forever apart from a trolden video every few months when someone makes the mistake of playing one, such a waste.
I'm not against buffing weak cards, but it should be done with caution and extremely sparingly. There are myriad examples of cards being complete garbage until a later expansion was released. Look at Whirliglider for example. Considered hot garbage for a long time, and now it's used in a tier 1 deck. Raid Leader and Windfury Harpy have been called some of the worst cards in the game, and were also later used in Tier 1 decks. Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound was met with a less than warm release, now its the bane of wild players everywhere.
Tinkmaster Overspark used to be a targeted effect. It was proven to be too powerful and was subsequently nerfed. Since then, its seen some use in control warriors and concede shaman.
I suggest reading this article on why bad cards exist:
Yes I played in beta (i think it was beta it was changed?, been so long) im aware of tinkmasters old effect, because a card was deemed too powerful literally over 5 years and over 10 sets ago doesnt really mean anything anymore and frankly seems like a very lazy excuse to let a card rot away forever.
Ive also read that exact article, although it was a long time ago, I think around 2010 so my memory on some of its finer points are abit sketchy, but again I'm not really refering to buffing just plain bad cards, such as vanilla stat minions with little or no text, all of the cards you pointed out have been wildly regarded as bad/poor but none of them are "will instantly lose you the game most the time you play them" quality, ive seen them used many a time to innocent enough effect by newer players.
Hearthstone has a huge, massive edge over TCG's in that, well its digital, cards can be readily changed, altered at any time, yet hearthstone has never really taken advantage of that, a card has to be pretty much breaking the game before its given a token nerf and thats all the card changing interaction we ever get. I dont understand why we should be scared of the remote chance that buffing a terrible card might make it too powerful one day, if that happens...just change it again? We have had the undertaker hunter, grim patrons, secret paladin, pirate warrior etc etc etc all the way up until the dominate decks of today, does it really matter if the next dominate deck used a card that has spend almost its entire life in the garbage bin for a bit?
Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I'm not against buffing weak cards, but it should be done with caution and extremely sparingly. There are myriad examples of cards being complete garbage until a later expansion was released. Look at Whirliglider for example. Considered hot garbage for a long time, and now it's used in a tier 1 deck.
Whirliglider is still pretty trash. Yes, some lists of mech hunter use it. However, just because it happens to be a mech, and mech hunter is good right now, and some mech hunters put it in the list ... that doesn't really make it good.
Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I'm not against buffing weak cards, but it should be done with caution and extremely sparingly. There are myriad examples of cards being complete garbage until a later expansion was released. Look at Whirliglider for example. Considered hot garbage for a long time, and now it's used in a tier 1 deck.
Whirliglider is still pretty trash. Yes, some lists of mech hunter use it. However, just because it happens to be a mech, and mech hunter is good right now, and some mech hunters put it in the list ... that doesn't really make it good.
If being played in top tier meta decks doesn't make a card good, then what makes a card good in your eyes ?
I agree that buffs are a great solution but I've been saying that since HS's release. Blizzard has outright said no to that idea and they've been pretty blunt as to why. Straight up, it's more profitable to print and sell new cards with said power levels rather than buff something old that we already own, it's fucked up but at least they were honest. Therefore it's pointless to keep pitching this same idea to the devs, they aren't going to buff old cards, no use talking about it.
Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I'm not against buffing weak cards, but it should be done with caution and extremely sparingly. There are myriad examples of cards being complete garbage until a later expansion was released. Look at Whirliglider for example. Considered hot garbage for a long time, and now it's used in a tier 1 deck.
Whirliglider is still pretty trash. Yes, some lists of mech hunter use it. However, just because it happens to be a mech, and mech hunter is good right now, and some mech hunters put it in the list ... that doesn't really make it good.
If being played in top tier meta decks doesn't make a card good, then what makes a card good in your eyes ?
Being an important part of a top tier deck makes a card good. The Whirliglider could be almost literally any 2 cost mech of any kind. The only reason it's included is because it's a 2-cost mech. And I don't even have it at all in my version of mech hunter. When the archetype can completely skip a card and it makes almost no difference, that card is not actually good.
No one plays Betrayal...make Betrayal 1 mana. Seemslegit.
Betrayal is actually very powerful in slow control games when combined with Valeera, particularly when you are facing an opponent that can insta spam a board in wild via Gul'Dan, N'Zoth, or jades ;)
Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I'm not against buffing weak cards, but it should be done with caution and extremely sparingly. There are myriad examples of cards being complete garbage until a later expansion was released. Look at Whirliglider for example. Considered hot garbage for a long time, and now it's used in a tier 1 deck.
Whirliglider is still pretty trash. Yes, some lists of mech hunter use it. However, just because it happens to be a mech, and mech hunter is good right now, and some mech hunters put it in the list ... that doesn't really make it good.
If being played in top tier meta decks doesn't make a card good, then what makes a card good in your eyes ?
Being an important part of a top tier deck makes a card good. The Whirliglider could be almost literally any 2 cost mech of any kind. The only reason it's included is because it's a 2-cost mech. And I don't even have it at all in my version of mech hunter. When the archetype can completely skip a card and it makes almost no difference, that card is not actually good.
The Whirliglider could be almost literally any 2 cost mech of any kind.
Whirliglider is better than any random 2 drop mech because it deals 2 damage to enemy hero, which is fairly important in aggro decks like Mech Hunter.
Sure it is not a deck defining card and not every Mech Hunter will run it, but it fills a niche and can be played your 29th or 30th card. Not every card has to Ragnaros or Lich King to be "good".
They need to bring the powerlevel down, not up.The powercreeping is stronger than it needs to be
This logic is generally valid,
Except Blizzard don't like to nerf the OP new cards.
They nerf perfectly balanced classic cards instead, just so they can bring more power creep.
The nerf the classic cards because the same problems keep happening. Tempo-based rogue decks have been good for a lot of hearthstone's history, and a lot of that is off the back of the classic cards backstab, preparation, sap, eviscerate, SI:7 Agent, deadly poison, and Van Cleef. Sure, they don't all always see play, but that is a very strong core of cards to build a deck around whatever strong tempo tools rogue has in the current format.
For anyone who remembers classic, calling rogue's classic set 'perfectly balanced' sounds ridiculous. Rogue was a huge problem in classic to the point where 90% of top 10 legend players were using it and the best counter was a faster rogue deck. Rogue's classic set has always been powerful, and their expansion cards are generally weaker.
So, they could nerf a couple of over-performing new cards and fix the problem right now, and then a year later we will see another dominant rogue deck with a bunch of classic/basic cards and some newly released flavor. Or, they could change one or two of the classic cards that make rogue consistently too strong and open up more space for different ways to play rogue in the future.
My hope is that they do a bit of both, EVIL miscreant is clearly extremely strong and will probably be an auto-include in every rogue deck for the next two years if not changed. I would suggest changing miscreant to a 1/3, prep to 1 mana, and dread corsair to 5 mana (that one might be more controversial, but dread corsair has proven to be an extremely powerful card and I think it makes sense to need a little more weapon investment for them to cost 0).
I actually don't think the process itself was all that horrible. I think they realised that their buff was a little too much - dropping the cost from 4 mana down to 2 - and they were able to learn from this and readjust it to the current 3 mana instead. It showed that cards don't have to be set in stone when a buff / nerf happens. However, I think that it's a shame that some overnerfed cards havent received the same fair treatment to be brought back into usefulness.
I like it a lot, all Blizzard do is downgrade cards that are too good, why not upgrade cards that are too bad? Personally I would like to see buffs on cards that are out of existance. Very simple example: make Silverback Patriarch a 2/4 (or even a battlecry: ad a banana to your hand). Or cards such as that 5 mana 4/2 Shaman weapon that summons a 4/2 elemental. Why not make it 4 mana just like all the other 4/2 weapons in the game. Make the Mistcaller and Moorabi a 5/5 or 4/6 (again Shaman cards, sorry, lol). Make Temporas a 4/6 taunt like The Curator. These are just some ideas on the top of my head, my point is: just make cards that never see play a little more playable so new decks can be created,
Thank you, Blizzard : D Hopefully this will be the new implementation and every expansion after Boomsday will be subject to this treatment as well. It will keep the game fresh between releases and will give bad cards a time to shine. Very proud of them for doing this and can't wait to see what happens.
Thank you, Blizzard : D Hopefully this will be the new implementation and every expansion after Boomsday will be subject to this treatment as well. It will keep the game fresh between releases and will give bad cards a time to shine. Very proud of them for doing this and can't wait to see what happens.
FWIW - if you watch the video announcing "Year of the Dragon," Ben Thompson and his buddy explain that there would be regular events between expansions designed to shake up the ladder and keep the meta-game fresh. There is a livestream scheduled for the Rise of Mechs event - perhaps there might be some clarification regarding whether these events will become the new norm two months after each expansion.
I hope this becomes a regular thing. Maybe they see their data and during the design process they kept cards conservatively costed or statted in order to limit making the card over powered. Then when released upon the HS community, these cards end up doing nothing for nobody.
Cards like the Storm Bringer was never played outside of trying it out and realizing how slow it is. It's only ever good if you get it from Hagatha.
And hey, if they screw up and realize how much a newly buffed card ends up even better than they thought, fine, fix it again. That's the beauty of a digital game. These changes are not only permanent, they should never be considered that.
Will these new buffed cards get played? Maybe, in trial and error, but I only think 2 or 3 will become competitive. But that's ok too. The idea is to change things and let players explore cards that were obviously never played, according to the data.
I said this in another thread, but if I was a designer and saw how a card was played in less than 2% of decks, I would be bummed. For example, the Storm Bringer is a really really cool card. It fits the evolve theme, it has synergy with cards like the 3 mana, draw a card, it costs 3 less card (the sight card). So it costing 1 less makes me a bit excited, to try it out once again. Even if it gets cut later on.
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Buffs are not the answer if you want a changing meta or to curb an overbearing archtype/deck, nerfs are the established go-to for that.
I don't think widespread buffs would or should ever be a thing, but it does really frustrate me the huge boatload (and yes when you add them all up through all the sets, there are absolutely tons) of cards that are just so laughably,unplayably bad, I'm talking Millhouse, Nat pagle, tinkmaster, cho, duskfallen Avinna, Hemet nesingwary to name but a few. How does having these cards exist as they are benefit anybody, apart from giving rage to a. people who get them in packs or b. people who get them from some kind of random generation effect.
I'm not even suggesting huge overhauls or changes, often just some small stat buffs or make their often gamebreaking side effects not quite as ridiculous so they can at least have *some* level of playablity and niche, even if it is an obscure one.
Just too throw in some random suggestions off the top of my head, what if Hemet actually had playable stats so it didnt die to almost every 2 drop? You could have an tech option if beast heavy decks ever start dominating the meta, and before you laugh, remember there was a point in time in hearthstone where pirate warrior and other weapon decks were so good, bloodsail corsair was seeing play. What if you could choose the target for tinkmasters transform effect? All of a sudden players would have a tech option against the big pirests rampaging in wild right now. The possibilities goes on and on
Instead they are just left too rot and be forgotten about forever apart from a trolden video every few months when someone makes the mistake of playing one, such a waste.
In rank 20 playing awful gimmick decks.
Cards are regularly buffed in Faeria, though this is usually done to nudge unpopular archetypes closer to playability, and not an attempt to balance the meta.
I'm not against buffing weak cards, but it should be done with caution and extremely sparingly. There are myriad examples of cards being complete garbage until a later expansion was released. Look at Whirliglider for example. Considered hot garbage for a long time, and now it's used in a tier 1 deck. Raid Leader and Windfury Harpy have been called some of the worst cards in the game, and were also later used in Tier 1 decks. Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound was met with a less than warm release, now its the bane of wild players everywhere.
Tinkmaster Overspark used to be a targeted effect. It was proven to be too powerful and was subsequently nerfed. Since then, its seen some use in control warriors and concede shaman.
I suggest reading this article on why bad cards exist:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28
It's about Magic: the Gathering and is well over a decade old, but the points still remain valid.
Yes I played in beta (i think it was beta it was changed?, been so long) im aware of tinkmasters old effect, because a card was deemed too powerful literally over 5 years and over 10 sets ago doesnt really mean anything anymore and frankly seems like a very lazy excuse to let a card rot away forever.
Ive also read that exact article, although it was a long time ago, I think around 2010 so my memory on some of its finer points are abit sketchy, but again I'm not really refering to buffing just plain bad cards, such as vanilla stat minions with little or no text, all of the cards you pointed out have been wildly regarded as bad/poor but none of them are "will instantly lose you the game most the time you play them" quality, ive seen them used many a time to innocent enough effect by newer players.
Hearthstone has a huge, massive edge over TCG's in that, well its digital, cards can be readily changed, altered at any time, yet hearthstone has never really taken advantage of that, a card has to be pretty much breaking the game before its given a token nerf and thats all the card changing interaction we ever get. I dont understand why we should be scared of the remote chance that buffing a terrible card might make it too powerful one day, if that happens...just change it again? We have had the undertaker hunter, grim patrons, secret paladin, pirate warrior etc etc etc all the way up until the dominate decks of today, does it really matter if the next dominate deck used a card that has spend almost its entire life in the garbage bin for a bit?
In rank 20 playing awful gimmick decks.
Whirliglider is still pretty trash. Yes, some lists of mech hunter use it. However, just because it happens to be a mech, and mech hunter is good right now, and some mech hunters put it in the list ... that doesn't really make it good.
If being played in top tier meta decks doesn't make a card good, then what makes a card good in your eyes ?
I agree that buffs are a great solution but I've been saying that since HS's release. Blizzard has outright said no to that idea and they've been pretty blunt as to why. Straight up, it's more profitable to print and sell new cards with said power levels rather than buff something old that we already own, it's fucked up but at least they were honest. Therefore it's pointless to keep pitching this same idea to the devs, they aren't going to buff old cards, no use talking about it.
Being an important part of a top tier deck makes a card good. The Whirliglider could be almost literally any 2 cost mech of any kind. The only reason it's included is because it's a 2-cost mech. And I don't even have it at all in my version of mech hunter. When the archetype can completely skip a card and it makes almost no difference, that card is not actually good.
Betrayal is actually very powerful in slow control games when combined with Valeera, particularly when you are facing an opponent that can insta spam a board in wild via Gul'Dan, N'Zoth, or jades ;)
Very underrated card in the right circumstances.
How many people have you seen play Spark Engine or Unpowered Mauler in Mech Hunter instead of Whirliglider ?
Whirliglider is better than any random 2 drop mech because it deals 2 damage to enemy hero, which is fairly important in aggro decks like Mech Hunter.
Sure it is not a deck defining card and not every Mech Hunter will run it, but it fills a niche and can be played your 29th or 30th card. Not every card has to Ragnaros or Lich King to be "good".
They need to bring the powerlevel down, not up.The powercreeping is stronger than it needs to be
This logic is generally valid,
Except Blizzard don't like to nerf the OP new cards.
They nerf perfectly balanced classic cards instead, just so they can bring more power creep.
The nerf the classic cards because the same problems keep happening. Tempo-based rogue decks have been good for a lot of hearthstone's history, and a lot of that is off the back of the classic cards backstab, preparation, sap, eviscerate, SI:7 Agent, deadly poison, and Van Cleef. Sure, they don't all always see play, but that is a very strong core of cards to build a deck around whatever strong tempo tools rogue has in the current format.
For anyone who remembers classic, calling rogue's classic set 'perfectly balanced' sounds ridiculous. Rogue was a huge problem in classic to the point where 90% of top 10 legend players were using it and the best counter was a faster rogue deck. Rogue's classic set has always been powerful, and their expansion cards are generally weaker.
So, they could nerf a couple of over-performing new cards and fix the problem right now, and then a year later we will see another dominant rogue deck with a bunch of classic/basic cards and some newly released flavor. Or, they could change one or two of the classic cards that make rogue consistently too strong and open up more space for different ways to play rogue in the future.
My hope is that they do a bit of both, EVIL miscreant is clearly extremely strong and will probably be an auto-include in every rogue deck for the next two years if not changed. I would suggest changing miscreant to a 1/3, prep to 1 mana, and dread corsair to 5 mana (that one might be more controversial, but dread corsair has proven to be an extremely powerful card and I think it makes sense to need a little more weapon investment for them to cost 0).
"Classic cards" and "balanced" don't go together. If anything Classic set is most unbalanced thing in HS.
I actually don't think the process itself was all that horrible. I think they realised that their buff was a little too much - dropping the cost from 4 mana down to 2 - and they were able to learn from this and readjust it to the current 3 mana instead.
It showed that cards don't have to be set in stone when a buff / nerf happens. However, I think that it's a shame that some overnerfed cards havent received the same fair treatment to be brought back into usefulness.
I like it a lot, all Blizzard do is downgrade cards that are too good, why not upgrade cards that are too bad? Personally I would like to see buffs on cards that are out of existance. Very simple example: make Silverback Patriarch a 2/4 (or even a battlecry: ad a banana to your hand). Or cards such as that 5 mana 4/2 Shaman weapon that summons a 4/2 elemental. Why not make it 4 mana just like all the other 4/2 weapons in the game. Make the Mistcaller and Moorabi a 5/5 or 4/6 (again Shaman cards, sorry, lol). Make Temporas a 4/6 taunt like The Curator. These are just some ideas on the top of my head, my point is: just make cards that never see play a little more playable so new decks can be created,
Thank you, Blizzard : D Hopefully this will be the new implementation and every expansion after Boomsday will be subject to this treatment as well. It will keep the game fresh between releases and will give bad cards a time to shine. Very proud of them for doing this and can't wait to see what happens.
FWIW - if you watch the video announcing "Year of the Dragon," Ben Thompson and his buddy explain that there would be regular events between expansions designed to shake up the ladder and keep the meta-game fresh. There is a livestream scheduled for the Rise of Mechs event - perhaps there might be some clarification regarding whether these events will become the new norm two months after each expansion.
We live in 2019 while this guy lives in 3019
I hope this becomes a regular thing. Maybe they see their data and during the design process they kept cards conservatively costed or statted in order to limit making the card over powered. Then when released upon the HS community, these cards end up doing nothing for nobody.
Cards like the Storm Bringer was never played outside of trying it out and realizing how slow it is. It's only ever good if you get it from Hagatha.
And hey, if they screw up and realize how much a newly buffed card ends up even better than they thought, fine, fix it again. That's the beauty of a digital game. These changes are not only permanent, they should never be considered that.
Will these new buffed cards get played? Maybe, in trial and error, but I only think 2 or 3 will become competitive. But that's ok too. The idea is to change things and let players explore cards that were obviously never played, according to the data.
I said this in another thread, but if I was a designer and saw how a card was played in less than 2% of decks, I would be bummed. For example, the Storm Bringer is a really really cool card. It fits the evolve theme, it has synergy with cards like the 3 mana, draw a card, it costs 3 less card (the sight card). So it costing 1 less makes me a bit excited, to try it out once again. Even if it gets cut later on.